Thriller Narrative

 Narrative Theory


Character Driven

Propp-Character Rolls



Propp's Approach to Narrative


  • Vladmir Propp studied hundreds of Russain folk and fairytales before deciding that all narratives have a common structure.
  • He observed that narratives are shaped and directed by certain types of characters and specific kinds of actions.
  • He believed that there are 31 possible stages or functions in any narrative.
  • These may not all appear in a single story, but nevertheless always appear in the same sequence.
  • A function is an event in the story.
  • A tale may skip functions but it cannot shuffle their unvarying order.



Vladmir Propp: Russain 1895-1970. He analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk to identify their simplest narrative elements.


Propp's approach to narrative
Prop believed that there are seven roles which any character may assume in the story:

Villain- Struggles with hero
Donor- Prepares and/or provides hero with magical agent
Helper- Assists, rescues, solves and/pr transfigures the hero.
Princess- A sought- for person (and/or her father) who exists as a goal and often recognizes and marries hero and/or punishes villain.
Dispatcher- Sends hero off
Hero- Departs on a search (seeker-hero), reacts to donor and weds at end.

Cause and Effect Narratives

Levi-Strauss-Binary Opposistions
Barthes-Narrative codes

Levi-Strauss-Narrative Theory of Binary Opposites

After studying hundreds of myths and legends from around the world, Levi-Strauss observed that we make sense of the world, people and events by seeing and using binary opposites everywhere.

He observed that all narratives are organized around the conflict between such binary opposites.
(Claude Levi-Strauss 1908, Belgium Structuralism and Linguist)


Examples of Binary Oppositions 

  1. Good VS Evil
  2. Black Vs White
  3. Boy Vs Girl
  4. Peace Vs War
  5. Civilized Vs Savage
  6. Democracy Vs Dictatorship
  7. Conqueror vs Conquered
  8. Domestic Vs Foreign/Alien
  9. Articulate Vs Inarticulate
  10. Young Vs Old
  11. Man Vs Nature
  12. Protagonist Vs Antagonist
  13. Action VS Inaction
  14. Motivator vs observer
  15. Empowered Vs Victim
Binary Opposition

  • Binary oppositions can help establish who the 'good' and the 'bad' characters are very quickly.

  • The idea that we cannot conceive the concept of 'good' without the presence of 'bad' with which to compare it to and therefore define it against.

  • Binary oppositions are obviously present in narratives because fundamentally a narrative must be based on a conflict of forces, opposition between hero and villain.


Barthes

Roland Barthe's Narrative Codes

The two ways of creating suspense in the narrative, the first caused by unanswered questions, the second by the anticipation of an action's resolution. 

  • Enigma Code- Anything that sets up a question in the narrative.
  • Action Code- Those plot events that move the narrative forward. 

1915 Semiotic Structuralist. 

 Narrative:

  • The way that stories are told
  • Groups events into cause and effect-action and inaction
  • Organizes time and space in very compressed form.
  • The voice of the narrative can vary; whose story is being told and from whose perspective?

Narrative Devices:
  1.  Flashback/Forward- Skip into past/future
  2. Red herrings- A wrong lead or distraction in the story.
  3. Dramatic irony- Audience knows more than the individual characters
  4. Foreshadowing- Hinting at things to come through the use of a situation or technical elements
  5. Pathetic Fallacy- Weather matches the mood of the scene
  6. Plot Twist- Something that is not expected happens which changes the course of the story.
  7. Omnipotent narrative- The audience are Godlike, knowing everything that is happening in the diegetic world.
  8. Restricted narrative- The audience are limited because they are only following things from a single, particular perspective- Usually one character. 
  9. Dues ex machina- The story is resolved by an agent not previously involved.
  10. In media res- The story begins midway through events, rather than at the natural beginning.
  11. Poetic Justice- A good character's behavior is rewarded at the end of the story and vice versa.
  12. Ticking clock scenario- The story takes place against a finite, ever descending clock.
  13. Unreliable narrator- A voice over is used, but the character voicing the story displays bias and may even mislead the viewer.
  14. Breaking the fourth wall- A character, or multiple characters, directly address the audience. 

Narrative Theory

Structure Driven
  • Todorov- Equilibrium ➡Disequilibrium➡Re-equilibrium
  • McKee's-5 part Narrative. 

Todorov's Approach to Narrative

  1.  The state of equilibrium (state of normality- good, bad or neutral)
  2. An event disrupts the equilibrium (a character or action)
  3. The main protagonist recognizes that the equilibrium has been disrupted.
  4. The protagonist attempts to rectify this in order to restore equilibrium
  5. Equilibrium is restored but, because casual transformations have occurred, there are differences (good, bad or neutral) from original equilibrium, which establish it as a new equilibrium 
McKee's 5 Part Structure:
  • Inciting Incident
  • Progressive Complications
  • Crisis
  • Climax
  • Resolution

My Chart:









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